


The Best Boggart

by Prinscar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boggart, Crack Fic, Gen, Patronus, a bit of neville character study, from a funny concept that yet makes so much sense, i'll definitely choose that headcanon for my future fics ;), lots of talking, mention of slight internalized transphobia, mentions of one or two potentially triggering words, slight remus lupin bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28818927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinscar/pseuds/Prinscar
Summary: Neville has a heart to heart with Harry after the events at the Ministry. They discover his Patronus. Is its shape really a surprise?
Relationships: Harry Potter & Severus Snape, Neville Longbottom & Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom & Severus Snape, Sirius Black & Harry Potter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 86





	The Best Boggart

The door to the Room of Requirement shuts softly behind him. He has gone to the Room to find some privacy, wondering if he could let his emotions flow or if it would take longer for the damn to break out again.

Sirius is _dead_ , and it _hurts_.

Drowning into a flow of accusative voices in his head, a thick, blinding grey fog obscuring his perceptions, Harry doesn’t notice he’s not alone until he has stepped through half of the room. He finds Neville looking back at him. It would be rude not to come by his side, so Harry does.

“Hey Harry.”

“Hey.”

They are silent for a while. Slowly, Harry takes in the struggling cupboard in front of them, and at his right, a big mirror standing over a table with a couch. It doesn’t surprise Harry to recognize a particular photo showing Frank and Alice Longbottom, before they went insane. A second, bigger one is pinned, yet Harry flees its sight. It shows the whole Order of the first war, and—Sirius…

“Sorry for…”

“Yeah. I know that. Thanks.”

The stretching silence is awkward between them.

“Sorry.”

“No problem.”

A new sound breaks out; it’s the cupboard landing noisily on the floor. Harry recognizes it as the one from third year, the one holding the Boggart at bay. Oh, judging by Neville’s presence, he knows what lies inside. He knows who will step out the moment the door opens.

Severus Snape.

Sirius died by Snape’s hand, and Harry loathes him. He cannot forgive Snape. Instead, he wishes his Boggart was his Potions professor just so he’d be able to beat him down. Fortunately though, Neville could provide a good show…

“Still good on your Riddikulus Charm?” Harry asks.

Neville doesn’t answer.

“You don’t think… Snape in grandma clothes… you can’t…“

The boy frowns unhappily. The cupboard shuffles again.

“I don’t want to be rude, but… Is that so funny to you?”

Harry is taken aback. Neville’s face is visibly bitter.

“That’s what it means, doesn’t it. That my grandma’s hideous.”

_What?_

“You laughed.”

The words escape despite Harry’s better judgement. His friend looks away. “Maybe I shouldn’t have. But that’s what a professor taught me. Maybe I should have found my own way.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Visibly not. Maybe I shouldn’t say that, I mean, you’ve already a great deal on your shoulders—“

“Nah it’s okay. It actually helps.”

“What?”

“To help. I like to help.” _Though maybe I should stop if it kills people._

He shakes his head violently, then pales as he notices Neville must have seen that. There is no judgement on the Gryffindor’s face however. Only sad compassion.

“Well then…”

Neville takes a deep breath.

“I was thinking… About the Battle at the Ministry and—and what it means on my part. Who knew little Neville Longbottom could have gone there to fight off Death Eaters? Nobody would have believed it. My family would have laughed if I had told them by myself only. Because it is impossible I’d do something like that. I am sort of half-Squib, you must have noticed. Untalented disappointment of a son.”

Harry sends a questioning look by his side. Another sigh.

“Since I was little, my family kept making choices in my stand. I told you, didn’t I? That they almost killed me, trying to force magic out of me. At every corner of my home, every time I wanted to eat or sleep, here they were, my Uncle and sometimes my grandma, jumping on me so I’d get scared and have a burst of accidental magic… I couldn’t concentrate on anything, because I feared I’d get hurt at any moment.

“And then they congratulated me _because I wasn’t a_ _Muggle_.”

The cupboard trembles more, darkness struggling to get free.

“What do you think they’d have done if I had been a true Squib? Ended up like Filch, much? A pitiful, ugly, laughing stock for the entire school? Or would they have sent me away to live with Muggles, because I was a shame for my family?”

He turns to face the photos of his parents. His eyes struck Harry with the intensity of impossible longing.

“I don’t think my parents would have accepted what my family did to me. At least, that’s what I prefer to imagine.”

Harry noticed three little crumpled candy papers below the mirror. Relics of his mother at St Mungo’s.

“And now, because of _them_ , I can’t get anything right. They broke me. If only they hadn’t harmed me so much—if they hadn’t made me such a pathetic, stupid boy—“

“You’re not.”

“Oh yeah? Figured you’d say that. Nobody told you that your parents must be proud wherever they are because I inherited their vegetative brain. But you know,” and Neville crosses his arms, a troubled look on his face, “if there ever is an afterlife, I don’t even know if they’d recognize me. Who knows; maybe they’ll be just as insane, and I won’t ever meet the true them the day I’ll die.”

He looks behind furtively.

“This stays between us, Harry, but… that sort of thought… it’s actually what kept me from…”

The hand wringing his wrist says it all. Harry gulps in horror. Neville keeps rubbing his left arm pensively.

“I think you must understand this… Your parents… and mine… Sometimes I wonder if everything would have been better if I wasn’t born at all. My parents would be happy… and I wouldn’t be so alone.”

He smiled at Harry.

“It was hard.”

“Yeah. Yeah I understand.”

“My grandmother called me ungrateful once, though, when I told her that. She said I shouldn’t complain because I had a family, I had her and my Uncle and… that I should be ashamed from ever thinking those things. I know she does it for the best, but for once I’d like not to be told I’m a source of shame in everything I do.”

He shows his wand to Harry. It is visibly new, cleanly polished, a healthy shape, and a beautiful colour.

“Cherry wood. Unicorn hair. My own. My father’s…”

“Broke at the Ministry.”

“And I’m glad.” Neville doesn’t look so sure of himself, yet he nods after a few seconds of reflection. “I’m sorry for my dad’s wand, and for my dad—but I am not my father. I have enough to try to fill my grandmother’s expectations. If breaking a wand forced her to consider me as my own, and not just a carbon-copy of my dad, then I’m glad. I’m sick of her treating me like a lesser Frank Longbottom. It hasn’t made me any good. I should have gotten my own wand years ago.”

At the mention of having to fill expectations so he can be his father, Harry thinks of Sirius; when he hears about being “a carbon-copy of his father”, Snape comes to mind, and Harry’s mood sets off. The man… he loathes him… because of him Sirius died, and it would be so much better if the roles had been reversed… but again fate doesn’t listen to his wishes…

Oblivious to Harry’s inner rage, Neville shuffles around, sighing.

“It might just be because I’m a teenager, but… ah, I think that I hate her now. Her, and Uncle Aggie, and all those who let them torment me. I think I can call that torment, considering.”

“What about Snape?”

Neville’s brow furrows in confusion at this unexpected change of subject.

“What about him?”

Harry’s rage only burns fouler.

“I hate him. You hate him too, don’t you? That’s why you are standing here. With the Boggart in the cupboard.” Harry’s lips curved uncontrollably at the corners, the monster in his chest snarling. “So you can have a good time humiliating him.”

“I don’t laugh at the expense of others, Harry. I thought you wouldn’t do the same?”

 _This is different_ , Harry thinks, eyes darkening by the next second. Fury boils at the pit of his stomach, and his fingers curve like claws at the image of his greasy, ugly, _sneering_ teacher.

“Could you let me have that?”

Neville gave a tight smile.

“It’s a little too late now.”

“Tired?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“It changed.”

“What?”

Neville looked at him seriously.

“It changed. My Boggart.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “Why?”

“Well… After what happened in the Ministry, and when I returned here, at Hogwarts, I figured that what I feared so much wasn’t truly Snape. Oh yes, I was ‘scared of him’ when I was younger, but only because I reported my fear on the wrong person. I didn’t fear the person so much as I feared being hurt because I was a living failure. I think I was wrong to think he’d ever do that.”

Harry opens his mouth; he doesn’t need to say anything though:

“Now, I can finally think, ‘I’ve done this, I’ve gone on an adventure and fought Death Eaters, and I’ve come out of it alive. This is me.’ It’s liberating. So I know it’s not Snape behind the cupboard.”

“Then, is it Bellatrix Lestrange?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I suppose you said that because she…(Neville clears his throat), she tortured my parents? No, I never feared Lestrange. I never met her. I never knew her. I don’t remember her. Why would I fear Lestrange? I mean, it’s like—why didn’t you fear V-Voldemort?” Neville looks proud at saying the name. “Why doesn’t Hermione fear the troll of Halloween, why doesn’t anyone fear the Basilisk?”

Harry knows why, and neither needs to say it aloud. That someone’s fear wasn’t always rational. Far from it, really.

“Plus she was in Azkaban until this year… I don’t see why I’d ever fear her.”

The daylight hits the windows at the right angle, and suddenly the room is filled with light that stings one’s retina. Fine powdered dust floating in mid-air draws the sun rays’ shape like footprints in the snow.

“In a sense, I am glad my Boggart was Professor Snape. It could have been much worse. He never put us in danger though, like Professor McGonagall. He never harmed us like Moody did. Quite the opposite. Frankly, I was more afraid of the wand he was pulling out as a Boggart, because I feared he’d do like Uncle Aggie, hexing me so he could force me to become better. I know that if I had been at my home though… my Boggart would be my Uncle.”

Neville starts to walk randomly, thinking hard about this day in Third Year. Thinking how much he has grown.

“I felt guilty.”

“Hm?”

“For what I pulled on the Snape Boggart. I don’t like laughing at people. Not that much. I just went with the flow. I might have been the one who cast Riddikulus, it was the class’ laughter that hurt the Boggart. The second time I didn’t really laugh either, I was just feeling proud I could finally cast a spell right.”

True, Harry hadn’t really laughed either. He had merely smiled. What Neville said next only confirmed they were alike.

“When they laughed at Snape, I remembered how people use to laugh at me too. It felt like they were laughing at me right then. I hated it. I still hate the memory. I feel ashamed.

“ I keep asking myself why Professor Lupin taught me to defeat the Boggart like he did. And, well… What is wrong with a guy wearing women clothes?”

The question is innocent and yet Harry doesn’t like what it meant. “It’s… well, it’s… there isn’t…” His throat feels dry when he swallows. “It’s fun but… but I guess there isn’t anything really… wrong?”

“But you still asked me to do it, to force Snape into those clothes to have your fill of mockery. Really Harry.”

“It’s not that men wearing feminine clothes is bad” Harry exclaims, waving his hands before him in defense, sweat breaking on his brow, “it’s just—Snape in those clothes—no offense really, but it really was ridiculous. Usually I wouldn’t laugh. It just was going so far… he was a living caricature.”

“Oh yeah? And—and do you think it’s okay, to laugh because someone invented a ridiculous ‘caricature’ of people who feel this way?”

“What do you mean?”

“You won’t… think it’s creepy if I tell you?”

“Depends on what.”

Neville twirls his wand around his fingers, refusing to meet Harry’s stare.

“Well… What I mean is… I’ve met a bloke who wanted to become a girl once, and two girls who were trying to turn into guys. I think there’s a name to it…”

Harry is brutally reminded of those weird people he saw in the street, men wearing make-up and high heels, or tomboys taking their style very far—“creeps’, “pedos”, “freaks”, and a word starting with “r”, Petunia would call them in a murmur as they passed, and Vernon would pull Dudley to his side with an uncertain glare. Harry has never known what to feel about them, because as odd as they seem, he knows that “freak” is a word that applied to him, and if Harry isn’t a freak, then why would those people be? Harry knows what it was like to be stared at, pointed at, bad-mouthed in his back, or ignored with cold indifference to the cruelty surrounding him. Those people got the same treatment, and maybe worse. And if Harry wishes people would stop judging to try and understand, then he ought to do the same. He knows better than to judge on first appearances. Or so he wishes.

“Oh yeah… Um, I’ll ask Hermione. She might know.”

“Right.”

“And you know… If that’s how we treat them… Professor Lupin taught us to laugh at a man wearing my grandma’s clothes. Now I know that my grandma’s ugly… well first it’s not nice of Lupin to show that… And imagine if anybody else from this school now thinks that the funniest thing that you could ever imagine was someone trying to be seen as being of the other… you know, sex. I don’t think it’s right. So now, yeah… I regret.”

“It’s not your fault your Boggart was Snape.”

“Yes, but maybe things could have gone differently. Hermione’s Boggart was Professor McGonagall, wasn’t it? Imagine if Lupin had told her to strip McGonagall in a swimsuit. Or worse.”

 _Or worse_. Harry shudders. How horrible indeed it would be to do to McGonagall what was done to Snape that first day of class.

“I wonder if I could have defeated Snape like Hermione did. You know. Making him compliment me, like he compliments his Slytherins sometimes, even if he doesn’t give points. Or like I wished a teacher would do, for once in my life.”

The last words were spat with bitterness. Who could blame him?

And Harry suddenly thinks how curious it is, that both the best and the worst of the class have teachers as their Boggarts, and fear failure because of how they were once punished for not accomplishing enough.

“Now though… Ah, well… When I came last time I thought I could repair this mistake and learn another way to defeat my Boggart. To confront it, after what happened at the Ministry and what it meant for me. Now, I guess I’ll have to do without it.”

He cocks his head sideways.

“Say Harry… I heard you defeated your Boggart casting a Patronus. Do you reckon that if I…” He indicates the cupboard with a nod. Harry shrugs. “Might as well try. You remember how…?”

The chubby boy nods with a tight smile.

And so the wards on the cupboard fall, so the Boggart can burst free. Harry doesn’t recognize it clearly. He sees Neville’s face whiten in apprehension, his breath cut off, rapid and shallow.

“You really are a disappointment.”

Neville glares at the Boggart, his hurt curiously turning into anger.

“Should I take out the whip?”

“Neville,” Harry says. It is useless.

Because the situation is, without his knowing, already in control.

“ _Expecto…_ ”

Neville regains his breath, hardens his features, wand at the ready. Then a genuine smile tugs at his lips, and his eyes, already full of determination, are sparkling with elation. He bellows:

“ _Expecto Patronum!_ ”

Silver bursts out of the tip of the new cherry wand and coalesces into a massive form. It seems as if sharp wings follow the imposing Patronus, now standing in front of the Boggart. It lands softly on the ground, a foot after the other in astonishing elegance, the wings retracting and encircling it. Upon the sight of the figure, Harry thinks of an overgrown bat glowing eerily. It straightens, ominous—albeit a bit short, there is no doubt it towers over the man with greyish hair who hasn’t strain his eyes away from Neville.

It takes perhaps a minute too late for Harry’s brain to make sense of the shape of the Patronus; when it does, Harry can’t describe the feeling of utter astonishment that overcomes him. If the scene hadn’t been so absurd, Harry would be mildly horrified on Neville’s behalf. He needn’t fret however, because Neville is positively overjoyed.

A grin like sunshine, and his Patronus almost infused with the colours of a rainbow.

An overgrown bat, indeed.

“Neville,” the man begins, “you’ve failed—“

“Mister Longbottom,” the dark Patronus says in an unmistakable impending sneer.

Neville breaks in a vibrant row of laughter. Happiness and mirth echoes clear as crystal around the room, Neville who couldn’t believe what— _who_ his Patronus was, transported into feelings of absolute victory.

Harry is incredulous. Though on hindsight, it makes perfect sense. What indeed, could defeat any fear other than the most imposing threat that objectively exists right here in the castle—a fear you had mastered?

Professor Patronus Snape might as well bully the Dementors to submission.

And the Boggart, cowed by the apparition of the Professor, hurt with louder laughter, starts to retreat towards the shadow of the cupboard at the corner of the room. The whole thing is insane, Harry thinks. Insane.

He has to admit, he can’t help a chuckle himself.

That seems to be the final blow. The Boggart finally decides to encage himself back into the safety of the random cupboard, whose doors it half closes. There remains only a thin space of opening.

Patronus Snape advances, takes the door and swings it shut on the Boggart’s nose, which elicits another round of laughter from Neville. His tears are tears of mirth. He descends into a noisy coughing fit before a glowing Snape that’s unimpressed, who’s lifting a condescending eyebrow at the display of no-doubt foolishness.

“How can you?”

Neville hums questioningly at Harry.

“ _Snape?_ _Him?_ Why him? He’s nasty and… evil.”

“Meh,” Neville shrugs. “Not sure. Isn’t it Snape who sent the Order after us?”

Harry stiffens like a deer caught in the light, blushing in shame.

“How’d you—“

“The Order. They told me they received Snape’s warning, and that was why we were saved. That’s not what I call evil. Right?” he asks the Patronus, who rolls his eyes and makes Neville grin.

“And it’s because of him that—Sirius died.”

“Ah.” Neville’s smile falls, comprehension blooming on features that now seem older. He didn’t say anything else, so Harry continued.

“If Snape… If Snape hadn’t goaded Sirius… if he hadn’t said a word… He’d be alive.”

“You think so?”

Harry nods, glaring at the Snape Patronus.

“So you think that if he had known you were at the Ministry with us, at the hands of… _Voldemort_ … he wouldn’t have come to save you?”

Harry frowns as he looks up at the chubby, fair-headed boy.

“You really think that your godfather would have stayed at home, knowing you were in danger far away, just… twiddling his thumbs and waiting?”

“No…”

“Then why are you putting the blame on Professor Snape? You’re saying that your godfather wouldn’t have come for you if not for Snape, and that he came just for a matter of pride! No. He came because he cared.”

His lips pursed, he says nothing.

“Listen. I promise you it wasn’t your fault, neither Snape’s, nor Si-Sirius’s—that’s his name right—“

“I know that. Dumbledore told me.”

“And he’s right. Who’s the one who killed Sirius? Who sent that spell?”

The sunlight is blinding in the room, the temperature unbearable, and the birds are chirping too happily for his mood. The truth is clear however, and Harry can’t deny it.

“Bellatrix Lestrange.”

“Yes. Her. Again.”

Neville turns to his Patronus, who stares back impassibly.

“She is the one to blame. Her, and Voldemort.”

They say nothing as Neville sends a quick look to the photo by their side.

“Harry… When you have digested your godfather’s… passing… maybe you should consider what I say. I think you’re being a bit… biased, and are judging Snape in bad faith. I’m not saying that he wasn’t goading him at all, but it’s clear that it is not Snape’s fault. In fact, if not for Snape, we would probably be dead at this moment. He’s the one who sent the Order after us, isn’t he?”

Harry grumbles darkly. Yes, it was Snape who had rescued them in the end. Yes, at the end of each year, it seems like his Potions Professor is always involved in saving Hogwarts’ pupils. In first year, as he saved Harry on his first Quidditch match when nobody else would, and warded Quirell off—second year, as Snape had brewed the Mandrake Draught and stepped forth to call Lockhart on his bluff—third year, as he had come to the Shrieking Shack to save their skin—fourth year, stepping forth again to show that yes, Voldemort was back—and now fifth year, decoding Harry’s message and sending the Order to save them, giving Sirius the opportunity to prove his worth, even if he had somehow failed to protect Harry all along…

However, Harry isn’t ready. The thought of his godfather makes his throat tighten in pain and a wave of self-loathing shower his head, freezing his heart.

If Snape isn’t responsible, then Harry is, and Harry cannot bear—

“Remember,” Neville’s voice breaks his train of thought, “remember that the guilty is neither Snape nor you—especially not you. If there is someone you want to blame, it’s Lestrange and You-Know-Who. If you cannot trust Snape yet, then at least trust me on this.”

Harry doesn’t mean to pull away when Neville lands a comforting hand on his shoulder, but the young man only grins awkwardly. He closes his lips a beat later, murmuring in confidence:

“I think that on this matter… knowing what we know… it’s best to see Professor Snape as a friend rather than a foe.”

The Patronus glows evermore.

“Okay.”

The two Gryffindors stand side by side, looking over at Severus Snape, seeming like a ghost in tangible form.

“It’s scary.”

“The Boggart?”

“No, your Patronus.”

Neville chuckles again, and Snape closes his eyes just as he tightens his lips in dignity.

“It might be the first case ever,” Harry adds thoughtfully. “He was supposed to be your Boggart.”

“Yeah. But I won’t complain. I’m glad that my Patronus is Professor Snape.”

**Author's Note:**

> One day, someone wrote, surely by mistake, that "Snape was Neville's Patronus". This was such a wonderful idea, you can't let such an occasion pass! This is a headcanon that I love very much. Why do you think Neville was "never able to cast a Patronus"? Breaknews: He could. It's just that he didn't want anyone else to know...


End file.
